


Aquarius is Drowning

by Giroshane



Series: Thanks for nothing, stars [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Happy, cecilos - Freeform, takes place sometime after episode 59
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3163643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giroshane/pseuds/Giroshane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps take up drinking while crying in a quiet room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aquarius is Drowning

 

 

 

Carlos fumbled for his phone with one hand, the other spread against the window to Night Vale as if in a vain hope it would phase through it. 

  
_Too far,_  Carlos though frantically.  _He's gone too far._

Carlos's window to Night Vale was showing their apartment, their quaint little thing with the green walls and dark wood floors that hissed instead of creaked. It was their living room, Carlos's ratty couch (ratty being quite literal) facing the fireplace in the wall adjacent to his window. It was there that his boyfriend lay, abject and disheveled. Cecil's suspenders were loose and hanging off his shoulders; his shirt was unbuttoned and his tie was loose and uneven; he only had one shoe on. One arm was draped across his face, failing to hide the tear tracks that Carlos could see faintly from across the room. The other hung limply off the couch, holding onto a wine bottle. Another bottle was by the other end of the couch, empty and knocked over. On the floor by the fireplace lay a shattered wine glass; Carlos wondered who threw it--Cecil or the Faceless Old Woman who lived in their home. He decided it was the Woman (likely when Cecil had his back turned) due to the fact that the glass had been thrown with such force as to shatter it into pieces as small and fine as gravel, and also because some of those pieces were still floating. Small deterrent it was though, as it looked like Cecil had simply started drinking straight out of the bottle.

He could see Cecil's phone shifting across the coffee table as it vibrated, but Cecil didn't answer it. He didn't even move. Carlos tried again. He started to worry that Cecil had drunken himself unconscious when on the third attempt, Cecil shifted and slowly sat up. He didn't reach his phone in time, but Carlos quickly called again. Cecil answered, and as Carlos feared he truly was as drunk as he looked.

"Heeeyyy," came the slur. His voice was lower, morose.

"Cecil."

"Oh! Hey! You! It's--you!" Cecil cried, trying to play at optimistic sobriety and failing miserably. 

"Cecil, are you okay?" No, no he wasn't, that much was painfully obvious.

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine! I'm--I'm neat!" Cecil laughed. Carlos could see that it didn't reach Cecil's eyes. If anything it looked like he was about to start crying. For a moment Carlos wondered if he should pretend he had no idea Cecil was drunk, pretend everything was fine just like the last few times this happened.

No. This wasn't safe and it needed to stop.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked again.

"Offffffff course I am!" Cecil tried to scoff, "I'm perd--I'm pert--I'm  _fine_. A-q-k!" He trailed off laughing again. 

"You've been drinking." Not a question. It didn't need to be.

"Well, yeahhhhh," Cecil shrugged, "I mean, I saw somethin' today. So I said nothin', soooo now I have ta drink to forget!"

"Cecil, you're lying." Even if Carlos hadn't seen Cecil's betraying finger-tap, Carlos could hear the shiftiness in his voice. Cecil pretended not to hear him.

"So how's the desert? Tasty?" Cecil giggled at his own poor joke as he tried to change the subject.

"You're  _drunk_!" Carlos snapped finally, hand slamming on the window desperately. Cecil jumped, fumbling for words.

"W-well--uh--I mean--I'm not--well, drunk--drunk is a druther--drather-- loose--loose team--t-term--"

"You've drank yourself stupid, Cecil! What the hell?" 

Cecil jumped to his feet in drunken indignation, almost collapsing right back down. He pointed in the air as if Carlos was in the room as he spoke, stumbling wildly.

"Ex _cuuuuse_  you! I am fu-fine! I am prefect--perfectingly capable of knowin' my own alc-haul tol'rance and I kin as _sure_  you--"

"Cecil, stop  _lying_  to me!" Carlos yelled back, tears in his voice, "You're a stumbling mess! It's a miracle you're even  _conscious_ , let alone standing!"

Cecil stopped, straightening up.

"Wha--? How d'you.."

Carlos stayed silent as Cecil slowly figured it out. 

"You can see me?" Cecil mumbled quietly, looking around.

"It's why I called. I found a window where I could see you and I was worried. Cecil, why are you doing this?!"

"I don't have t'answer that." Cecil huffed angrily, jabbing a finger at the fireplace wall. Carlos quietly corrected him.

"I can see you from the wall on your left."

Cecil turned right.

"Other left, Cec."

He whirled and finally he was looking at Carlos straight on and Carlos couldn't describe the sinking feeling in his chest except for that it hurt. 

Cecil's tear tracks ran down his face like scars, and he had bags under his eyes. That was Carlos's thing, almost a permanent part of his appearance from too many late nights in the lab. They shouldn't be marring Cecil's face. Cecil's eyes, those gorgeous eyes, they were practically dead. And Carlos saw scratch marks near the back of Cecil's neck. He suddenly remembered Cecil's nervous habit; on their first date Cecil had almost scratched his neck to bleeding. The habit had sustained for a while until Cecil had grown more comfortable around him. He hadn't done it for months. These marks were already scabs. Carlos's heart flipped.

"Cecil, what's happened?" He murmured sadly. Cecil look away from the wall, then back, anger and grief clouding his features. 

" _You_ , Carlos," he said, "You happened. You're happening. You're  _always_  happening. And  _never_  happening. You are always and never  _happening_.  _Always_. And I can't do it anymore Carlos!"

Cecil had started pacing. Every word he spoke made Carlos's chest constrict a little bit more. 

"Do you want to know why I'm drinking, Carlos? Why I'm  _drunk_!? Because the st-tars told me to, Carlos! They  _told_  me to give up! That was my horoscope! 'Take up drinking and crying'! Because that's the perfect thing for me! You knew--you know what Carlos?  _I haven't been this bad since before Svitz._  Years of self-control down the toilet! And  _yes_ , Carlos, I _do_ mean it like it sounds! I _was_ an alcoholic. And then, I got better. And now--now-- _I can't take it anymore!_ "

Cecil was jabbing at the wall now, and Carlos wanted nothing more than to be on the other end of that finger, have it jab into his chest, rather than simply hear and see it hit the wall. He would have tried to stop Cecil's meltdown if he could have found the words. 

"And you--you--you don't even  _care_!"

Oh no. No no no no no no no. Carlos felt his pain start to harden into bitter anger.

"You're  _happy_  where you are! You might as well stay because you don't even  _want_  to come home--"

"Don't say that to me!" Carlos yelled, slamming his fist on the wall. Cecil jumped at the sound.

"Don't you  _dare_  fucking say that to me, Cecil! Every goddamned day I look for a goddamned door! I want more than anything to come home so don't you dare tell me I don't care!"

"But--"

"Those science things? Discoveries and research? It's bullshit, Cecil! I made most of it up--for you! I didn't want you to worry, I didn't want you to know I'm--" Carlos's voice cracked, and he could feel tears down his cheeks and he couldn't stop it. His feet didn't have the strength to hold him anymore and he sank to his knees, head against the window.

"--I'm breaking Cecil. I'm broken. Every day I don't find a fucking door I know it means I'm one step farther away from you and I can't take it anymore, either. I told you those things so that you would think I was okay when I wasn't. I wanted you to keep hoping because Gods know I couldn't do it on my own. Your hope was the only thing keeping me going, Cecil. And now...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You thought," Cecil said, slowly, voice dead,"You thought that if you told me you were happy where you were, that I'd have hope that you'd come back to me."

It was all Carlos could do not to sob.

"Thoughts are often wrong, Carlos, but this? This really takes the fucking cake."

"I know, believe me, I know. I have never been more sorry than I am right now. But you thought wrong too, Cecil. You thought that lying to me that you were fine so I wouldn't worry would make everything okay. I've seen you like this before Cecil, but I never thought it'd get this bad...But I guess that's my fault. I should have stopped it as soon as it started and I'm so very, very sorry."

"Carlos, my self-harm is--"

"My fault. Science is often a study of cause and effect and right now I  _know_  I'm the cause."

As Carlos spoke, he was coming to a decision. A decision that could possibly be the worst decision he would ever make. A decision that could kill him if he let it.

"Cecil," he said,"I am a scientist. That means that I am not good with people. That has  _always_  meant that I am  _never_  good with people. I thought that with you I would be different. That I would be good with you but I wasn't and I'm sorry. And I'm so sorry for this."

Cecil was still standing and staring at the wall. He had laid his hand on it. Carlos stood up and matched his palm with Cecil's.

"I'm touching your hand." He whispered. He closed his eyes and pretended that that was literal, that they were touching, that they were together. But that couldn't be, and that's why he had to say what he said next.

"Cecil. Cecil Gershwin Palmer, I swear to you on everything that we hold dear--on all the gods that we have to swear to to stay alive that I will _never_ stop looking for a door. I will never stop looking for a way back to you. Because I love you Cecil. I love you more than anything in this existence; even more than science. But this is breaking us. We are running ourselves into the ground, but I know for a fact that one of us doesn't have to. One of us has the opportunity to move on. To live a better life."

"Carlos, w-what are you saying?" There was fear in Cecil's voice. There was so much pain and sadness in Carlos's but he kept going.

"I'm not going to call you anymore Cecil. I'm not going to text you, or snapchat you, or FaceTime with you. You need to move on, Cecil. You need to get better and you can only do that without me."

"What? No. Nonononono no. Carlos, don't--"

"You're hurting yourself, Cecil. You're  _killing_  yourself. And it's my fault. And I can't let myself hurt you. I can't  _live_  with myself if I'm hurting you."

"Carlos, I can't live without--"

"Yes, yes you can, Cecil. I believe in you. I trust in you to get better. To move on. To find someone better than me. I'll never stop looking, Cecil. And maybe, maybe one day I'll get back to you and we can pick up where we left off. Maybe one day I'll get to you and you'll have moved on, and that's--and that's okay, because that means you're happy and that's all that matters to me."

"Carlos, no!  _Please_  no. Please--" Cecil started to bang on the wall. His voice kept breaking. He was crying. Carlos was too.

"Yes, Cecil. Every time I call you--every time I  _see_  you, you're  _drowning_. I can't do that to you!"

"Carlos, I'll stop. I'll stop drinking. Please, just--I'll do anything--"

"Move on. Do--just do that for me. Please." Carlos stepped back from the wall.

" _No!_ _Don't do this_!"

"I'll never stop looking for a way back to you, Cecil. I'll always love you."

"NO! Carlos, don't hang up! Don't leave me--"

Carlos ended the call. He didn't look at the window anymore, walking away. Every step was as heavy as lead. 

He knew Cecil was still screaming.

He knew Cecil was still banging on the wall with all his might.

He knew he might have made the wrong decision just now, but it was the best option he could see. 

He knew Cecil was strong.

He knew Cecil could do this.

He knew that whatever happened, he would find his way back to the Voice of Night Vale, somehow, someday, in whatever way, shape, or form that might mean.

**Author's Note:**

> Let it be known that this is absolutely NOT what I want to happen. At all. Episode 51 and 54 inspired me. My writing process is essentially creating the dialogue by talking to myself and then writing around it so I guarantee you I cried over this on three separate occasions.  
> Hopefully it'll get better, right?  
> Hopefully.


End file.
